Control Center

Setting up a new Mac is an experience in itself. But once you finish your initial setup, you should change these Mac system settings for a better experience. These five easy tweaks to default Mac system preferences will speed up your workflow and save you time.

Irrespective of whether you are a new or long-time Mac user, below are five settings to change on your Mac. Keep reading or watch our latest video.

You can scan and open a QR code directly from your iPhone camera or a picture — you don’t have to download a third-party app. Here are the three ways you can open them: inside the camera, using a shortcut in Control Center and directly from your photo library. 

If you’re in a restaurant and you want to open their digital menu, or you’re setting up two-factor authentication using a code, you don’t want to fiddle with installing an app. This functionality is built right into your phone.

Keep reading or watch our short video.

Control Center in Vision Pro works very differently than on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac. But as with Apple’s other platforms, you can customize the Vision Pro Control Center to make it far more useful.

The first few days after I got my Vision Pro, I found Control Center to be intensely irritating. It constantly appeared in my field of view, bugging me like a hair in my mouth or a piece of popcorn in my teeth.

Luckily, with just a few changes, you can make Control Center way less annoying.

Shazam, Apple’s popular app that can name any song in seconds, added a cool new feature Thursday in version 17.3 — it now works even when you wear headphones.

And that’s true for music playing around you or within apps like Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, Apple said.

You’re at a holiday party and your friend takes a great picture. You ask them to AirDrop you a copy and the two iPhones won’t connect. So frustrating — what the %^#* is wrong? Why can’t you share iPhone photos the way you used to?

The problem might be because Apple changed the way AirDrop works last year. Here’s how to set the easy wireless file-transfer system so you can get that picture from your friend.

Finally, you can ping a lost Apple Watch from your iPhone — thanks to iOS 17 and watchOS 10. The reverse has always been a cool feature of Apple Watch: locating the iPhone you set down somewhere nearby, surely.

If you take your Apple Watch off at the end of the day, forgetting to throw it on the charger, you may not remember where you left it the following morning. Now, you can find a lost Apple Watch from your iPhone. Here’s how it works.

Apple Watch does so much that it’s possible for some of its handy tricks to get lost. Here are a trio of them that aren’t marquee features but can make life just a bit more convenient.

Here’s how to turn on the flashlight, find your iPhone and silence alarms on your iPhone from an Apple Watch.

The old way of adjusting the brightness level on the Magic Keyboard for iPad stopped working. And good riddance. There’s a new, better way.

Changing the brightness level for the keys on the Apple Magic Keyboard for iPad used to be a hassle, but it’s now about as simple as one could wish. iPadOS 15.4 adds a control to the Control Center than makes this adjustment quick and easy.

Here’s how to set up and use the new feature.

The Apple TV Remote baked into Control Center on iPhone and iPad has been redesigned for iOS and iPadOS 15.

Its new interface better resembles the new Siri Remote that ships with the latest Apple TV 4K, introduced back in April, and offers greater functionality over the old design.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Make your favorite Control Center tools and shortcuts easier to find by reorganizing and cleaning up your Control Center window. It’s easy on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch — and we’ll show you how.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Can’t remember where you left your iPhone? Use Control Center on your Apple Watch to “ping” it so that you can quickly track it down. You can even have your iPhone light up so that it’s easier to find in the dark.

We’ll show you how.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Switching between different AirPods audio modes is simple with Control Center on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. You can activate or deactivate Transparency and active noise cancellation in just a couple of taps.

We’ll show you how.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Control Center puts a ton of useful toggles and shortcuts at your fingertips, and you can access all of them while your iPhone or iPad are locked. If that’s not something you want, you can change it.

Here’s how to block Control Center access from the lock screen on iOS and iPadOS.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Activate Live Listen for AirPods and Powerbeats headphones inside Control Center to make it easier to hear other people in a noisy environment. The feature is built into iPhone and iPad and easy to use.

We’ll show you how.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Schooltime is a handy new feature, introduced in watchOS 7, that keeps Apple Watch quiet and prevents it from being a distraction in the classroom. It can be added to your Control Center options so that enabling Schooltime at any time takes just a swipe and a tap.

We’ll show you how.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

If you use the Touch Bar on your MacBook Pro as it was intended, your keyboard brightness controls aren’t immediately at your fingertips. But you can use Control Center instead to quickly adjust your backlighting.

We’ll show you how.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

The handy screen mirroring feature built into iPhone, iPad, and Mac allows you to stream video or your device’s screen to Apple TV or an external display with AirPlay 2 support. And you can enable it in an instant by using the screen mirroring button in Control Center.

We’ll show you how.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Want to quickly activate AirDrop, or deactivate it to avoid unwanted requests? There’s no need to mess around inside the Settings app or System Preferences; the toggle you need is baked into Control Center.

It’s enabled by default on iPhone, iPad, and Mac and can be quickly accessed when you need it. We’ll show you how.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Lost your Apple TV’s Siri Remote? Control your set-top box using Control Center on your iPhone or iPad instead. It’s super-simple to set up and you get all the buttons you need for complete control.

We’ll show you how to use it.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Searching for something in a dark room? You can turn your iPhone, iPad and even your Apple Watch into a flashlight with just one tap inside Control Center. We’ll show you how.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Did you know you can quickly capture a voice memo or audio recording with a simple Control Center shortcut? It’ll save you having to hunt down the Voice Memos app, or from having to place another unnecessary icon on your Home screen that you might not need every single day.

We’ll show you how to get set up.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Quickly connect to Bluetooth devices by using Control Center on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. You won’t need to fiddle around inside Settings or System Preferences — just a couple of taps is all it takes to start pairing.

We’ll show you how.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Heading into an important meeting and need your iPhone to keep quiet? Don’t worry about turning off your device or messing around inside the Settings app; toggle Do Not Disturb mode with one tap in Control Center.

We’ll show you how on all Apple devices.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Need to disable True Tone on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac? You could open the Settings app and dig around inside there for a few minutes until you find what you need. Or you could toggle the feature in an instant right inside Control Center.

We’ll show you how.

We want to help you master Control Center, one of the most powerful and underutilized features on Apple devices. Cult of Mac’s Control Center Pro Tips series will show you how to make the most of this useful toolbox on iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac.

Worried your iPhone or iPad battery isn’t going to last you all day? Activate Low Power Mode inside Control Center to minimize how much energy your device is consuming when it’s not being used. It’s super-simple to use, won’t get in your way, and it makes a big difference.

We’ll show you how and explain a similar feature — Power Reserve — that you can activate on Apple Watch.